First Jewish Champion

A large portion of the glory of the prize ring has been contributed by men whose forebears centuries ago fought against the Philistines, the Egyptians, the Arabians, the Babylonians, and the Romans. The Jews, like the Irishmen, took to boxing like a duck to water.

They accepted the sport as an institution in which they could use the weapons God gave them their fists to settle their disputes, and in which they could face an enemy man to man, in a test of individual skill and courage.

Daniel Mendoza, whose keen, flashing eyes and aquiline features are portrayed in old English prints, was the first Jew to gain a championship. He was much above the intellectual level of his contemporaries.

Prior to Mendoza's advent as a pugilist, brute strength and endurance, rather than scientific finesse, were the qualities most esteemed in the ring. However, after his first battle in which, though the victor, he sustained severe punishment, Dan set his active brains to work to study new means of defense. For three years he devoted himself assiduously to perfecting a system of guarding, sidestepping, and effective use of the straight left, before he again ventured on the test of actual battle.

The development of boxing as a really scientific proposition reached its first polished stage in the able hands of the extraordinary young Israelite. His new tactics were crowned with success. The men of the old-style school attempted in vain to stem the victorious march onward of scientific Daniel. By defeating Bill Warr on Bexley Common, November 12, 1794, Mendoza became champion.

Many boxing critics of his clay wrote enthusiastically about the swiftness and grace of the Jewish lad. They praised his generalship and superb science. Others, though these were in the minority, complained that there wits something cowardly about a fighter who frequently retreated and relied on superior agility and speed to win rather than standing up in true British bulldog style and hammering away doggedly until he or his opponent dropped.

Thus he revolutionized the Prize Ring. His advent ended the reign of the crude slugger. Even the conservative critics who decried Mendoza's prowess were compelled to admit that his rapid thinking and fine strategy had never heretofore been exhibited in ring warfare.

Mendoza had wrought this miracle and convinced the younger generation that while a strong offensive sometimes makes for victory, careful attention to a proper means of defense was no means to be despised. He had introduced this new type of fightingthe scientific style-and it soon became the rage, particularly among the amateurs.

The Celtic race is proverbially a fighting race, yet, strange as it may seem, it was this Jewish boy, Daniel Mendoza, to whom the Irish owe much for popularizing the fistic sport in Ireland, where he established a school in which he taught the art after his defeat of Squire Fitzgerald, the pride of Erin, during a tour of the Emerald Isle. Following Fitzgerald's defeat, Ireland developed many great gladiators and much of their success may be traced directly to Mendoza's tour.

Like Mendoza, another heavyweight pugilist, John Gully, who wore the championship crown in 1807, attracted considerable attention from the literary tribe, due to the fact that he became a Member of Parliament and was received in London society. Gully's whole life reads like a romance.

The son of a merchant, he embarked in business for himself, failed signally and landed in the King's Bench Prison as a debtor, with extremely poor prospects of ever being discharged. The law against debtors, as it then existed, could hold an unfortunate in jail for the rest of his natural life, unless some kind Samaritan paid the money and set him free.

Gully had a friend in Henry Pearce, known to the Fancy as the "Game Chicken." Pearce, born in Bristol, the town in which Gully first saw the light of day, was then champion and he visited his luckless pal in prison. As an amateur boxer, Gully could hold his own with the best, and to please some of his fellow prisoners, John consented to spar a few rounds with the title holder.

The mufflers were produced and, much to everyone's amazement, the youthful prisoner had no trouble in outpointing Pearce, whose fame, be it said, rested more on his strength than cleverness. The story of the remarkable amateur's feat became the talk of London town, with the result that Gully's debts were paid by a prominent sportsman on the condition that he fight Pearce for the title.

To a young athlete pining for his freedom and with a strong liking for the game, this way of escape was ideal. Accordingly, Gully and Pearce met in the ring, but the veteran was too much for Gully.

Gully's showing was so, good, despite his defeat, that when ill health forced Pearce to retire, the "Game Chicken" declared that young John was the only man fit to succeed him. This election was approved by the Pugilistic Club, a sort of Boxing Commission of the time which regulated ring affairs. But neither the public nor Gully was entirely satisfied until the right to hold the championship crown had been duly established by a signal victory.

So it was not until Gully had thoroughly whipped Bob Gregson, the Lancashire Giant, that he really was accorded the plaudits of the Fancy as a genuine king. Gregson, not satisfied that Gully was the better man, challenged him again for the title, and in a mill lasting an hour and a quarter Gregson was unable to answer the call of time for the twentyeighth round and Gully bowed his acknowledgements to a wildly cheering crowd.

A remarkable young man in several respects was Gully! Although he entered the prize ring through a prison gate and won the highest honors pugilism could accord him, it is probable that had not Fate forced him into the fistic game, he would never had turned professional. At heart, his ambition was to belong to the gentry. lie had little use for the professional ring and its shady followers, who had once picked clean his financial bones.

Immediately following his second victory over Gregson, he made a speech to the spectators in which he thanked them for their applause, but stated that he was absolutely through with fighting and would remain a private citizen in the future.

He kept his word. Vainly did sportsmen of wealth and influence try to coax Gully back for "just one more mill." It is said that even Royalty, in the person of the Duke of York, deigned personally to plead with the retired champion to break his pledge.

Gully remained obdurate. He would henceforth have nothing to do with fighting save as an observer. On the turf, the ex-champion accumulated a fortune. He had great success as a stable owner, winning the English Derby twice. He became a rich land proprietor, and, as before mentioned, a Member of Parliament. Gully died in 1863 at the ripe age of eighty, leaving a large family in comfortable circumstances.